Sunday, January 29, 2012

- The Future Of Obamanomics

Politicians no longer need to seize direct control of 'the means of production'. They can simply control the controllers with regulation. Once they put their regulatory infrastructure in place, they can tweak and tune that regulation to achieve all sorts of political goals. Selected bailouts and special case loans for politically appealing industries; punitive taxes and anti-competitive restrictions for industries that are not so politically appealing. We're no longer on a road to serfdom... now it's more of an escalator.

And of course... since you can't possibly hope to get the same amount of growth in an economy while giving special political favor to some people that the market wouldn't reward on it's own, that escalator only runs one direction... down.

Someone has to decide who wins and who loses. If the free market truly is 'unfettered' then it's the consumer who decides. Private industry never forced anyone to buy a product... they only asked them to. But as you add layer upon layer of regulation, the people who decide who wins and loses are the politicians. And in that world - our world - if the politicians don't like you, it doesn't matter how well you do. You aren't going to be allowed to win.

That same gun that is being held to the head of big business (otherwise known as the people who used to give people like you a job) is at the moment, ordering them to focus on windmills and solar panels. But it can and will be turned on you the instant the wind changes.

1 comment:

As I see it, the modern American regulatory state matured in its experience with the telcos. The only rational strategy to maintain incumbency in a New Deal style regulated industry experiencing dizzying technical innovation was to seek preservation through regulation. People in general didn't see the drag of the regulatory state, because they were not so concerned with comparing rates of capital formation in the American last mile architecture with say South Korea's. But as it went forward, the telcos learned to stifle competition, while regulators learned how to dance the dance that amuses voters. Now, the entirety of Washington knows the charade.

Only the bigest interests move the regulatory state, much like Burlington Northern Santa Fe LLC benefitting from the "regulatory" concerns with the Keystone pipeline. Small business owners get carpet bombed, without ever really knowing why or where it came from. Right now, liberalism is the sharpest tool of big business.